


An Earthling amongst Halcyon

by JoelleEmmily



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 04:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21452272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoelleEmmily/pseuds/JoelleEmmily
Summary: Awoken by a mad scientist, thrown into a dying colony, Carmen Weaver must fight for her life while trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Kudos: 9





	An Earthling amongst Halcyon

A shadowy distance... A dusky haze... The world, partially obscured behind a veil of non-existence... In the foreground, playing about her feet, a herd of miniature sheep, comically fluffy, frolicking about a strange landscape... To one side, rams, headbutting one another with their powerful curly horns... To the other, moseying cows, head bobbing with each step, periodically bumping their neighbours with their muzzles... Every animal was tiny, barely the height of her toe... It was magical, ethereal... Then they began to bray, to bleat, to howl... The sound was deafening, unnerving...

Watching them, listening to them, anxiety began to build within her centre, crawling over her shoulders... She reached out, her movements beyond her control... Plucked a ram up between her thumb and forefinger... Squeezed it... a shower of blood and awful startled her muddled mind...

The world shifted, altered... Moved... She tasted garlic, her body felt numb... Somewhere beyond her perception, sounds: a faint scraping, tinkling of metal, a showering of electrical sparks...

"Ah! There you are!"

A man... Old... Wild grey hair... An unfortunate under-bite...

"Wondering what's going on, eh? Bit of bad news there I'm afraid-"

He slammed the pod door closed, setting off a reverberating headache in the woman...

"Your colony ship was inexplicably knocked out of skip space and forced to complete its journey at sub light speeds-"

He spoke without pause, barely taking a breath... But what was he saying? So what if her colony ship had to limp along to its destination at sub-light? The closer to the speed of light an object moved, the slower time passed for that object relative to the universe at large. They would've arrived... wherever they were going, a little late, but into a wondrous future full of interesting toys and astounding new scientific findings.

"This means that you, and every other colonist on the Hope, have been in suspended animation for seventy years... give of take."

The Hope... Captain Hunte... her mission...

"Normally," the old man laughed nervously, "reviving someone after so long leads to some quite horrifying results. It's called explosive cell death, but it's more of a liquefaction."

Her mind swam... Seventy years kept close to freezing... Thawing a person out could lead to damage of their cellular walls, causing them to spew their watery contents... Every organ would fail, their skin would weep, their brain would literally turn to soup... But she was alive... And this man definitely looked like the crazy scientist type... Had he solved the problem of ice crystals shredding everything they formed around? Had he found a way to dissolve dangerous accumulations in the body?

"Something wrong?"

He appeared genuinely concerned, but also a bit morbidly curious.

"Oh, yes, well," he chuckled, "not to worry, I've pumped your body full of a special concoction I devised to keep you from dying so horrifically. Hopefully at all, but I guess we'll see, yes?"

Patience evaporated away by the broiling lunacy of the circumstances, she attempted to spit sarcastic venom upon the guy, but she found her voice failing her... her jaw muscles barely moving... her tongue limp and useless in her mouth...

"Unfortunately I used the last of my chemical supplies saving you. I know it's a lot to ask, but I must have your help securing more, if we're to save the rest of your fellow colonists."

And what the hell was this loon doing? Repairing the pod? Was this an escape pod? Was he about to eject her out into space in a pod he was trying to fix on the fly!?

"I'd see it done myself of course, but the Board has a sizable bounty on my head." He held up a 'wanted dead or alive' poster. "Now, my ship is... inoperative, but I've managed to hire a smuggler to help you out."

Great giddy god! She panicked. He *was* a crazy mad ass scientist! And proud of it! And the authorities were out to get him! And didn't care if he was brought to them in pieces! What the happy fuck was going on!

"Oh! I see we're in position. Good luck!" He pressed a button before taking a step back, holding his hands behind himself in a proud, pompous display. But nothing happened.

The woman lost what was left of her composure, and moaned her displeasure at the man, each groaning, mournfully angry protest evacuating her lungs in great spasms. How dare this guy jeopardize her mission, how dare he abduct her, use her for his own ends. She was... she was... Oh god, she couldn't remember her own name, couldn't ask what it was, or what her mission was supposed to be...

She pawed at the door, limply attempting to bat it open... He played at the controls, basically mashing at the keyboard... Suddenly, the pod launched...

Level markers blinked by, thick stretches of metal zoomed along; then space... cold, dark, desolately beautiful space... She'd been born on a space station... Growing up, she loved staring out into the endless expanse of black bespeckled wonder. Sometimes, the station would rotate in such a way that earth would gleam in through her bedroom window, which wasn't as beautiful. It was impressive in its own planetary way, but by no means as breathtaking as the boundless forever. Other times, her parents would bring her out into the observatory, a gravity-less glass box children and adults alike could bounce around and play in, all but naked in the forever sea...

Her parents... Her father had been a company man for Spacer's Choice, but she had little to no memory of him, he'd left, or had been thrown out by her mother, when she was little. Her mom... she hadn't been affiliated with any of the global corporations, she'd been a counsel woman aboard the Space Station Earth Star...

But what about herself? Carmen Weaver... Yes, that was her name, she could remember it, hear her mother calling it... barking it when she was doing something she wasn't supposed to... like jettisoning large bottles of water out an airlock with her friends, watching them explode and flash freeze in the vacuum of space... She was an IGO of the Unaffiliated Earth Governments... And her mission was observer... She was undercover as a colonist, sent to make sure the corporations weren't squandering humanity's investment in exoplanetary colonization. They couldn't be trusted... not completely... they were wild animals bent on devouring profit at all costs... In Halcyon, they were the top predators, leash-less... unbridled...

"Can you hear me? Is this thing working?"

Her orders weren't to interfere, she was to blend in, observe, collect data and report back the unadulterated happenings. Halcyon Holdings would lie there collective ass off if they thought it was to their benefit... but that didn't mean things would automatically go down the tubes...

"Ah, there you are." A monitor popped out to display the old man's face. "Now where were we..."

"Asshole," Carmen managed to croak.

"Well, I don't think there's any need for name-calling."

"No..." She smacked the monitor weakly. "Where were we? You were being an asshole, and I was being abducted."

"Yes, as I said, I do apologize for that. Time *is* of the essence."

The ascending stars made Weaver want to vomit. "Lick my freezer burned labia... I'm not doing a god damned thing for you until you tell me exactly what's going on."

"Going on? Well, specifically, you're descending toward Terra 2, to land in the Emerald Veil, at about seven kilometres per second; you'll be slowing to terminal velocity in a few moments, to meet a smuggler I secured by the name of Hawthorne... he'll be waiting for you at the landing site. He'll be your chauffeur, so to speak, but not to worry, I'm told he's a specialist: Dashing gunslinger, one of a kind ship, that sort of thing. You'll like him, I'm sure."

"I've rarely, if ever, like anyone, anyone else has ever told me, I'll like. Most of the time, I find out they're incompetent, backstabbing, morons." She levelled her harshest glare at the screen. "What I meant, was why I was revived by Doc Crazy, why the rest of the Hope isn't being woken, and where Captain Hunte is."

"I'm afraid that's a bit of a story. Sufficed to say, I'm Phineas Welles, Captain Hunte is deceased, and the board has reason to not wish you, and the other colonists, awakened. Now I regret to inform you, you're entering the planet's exosphere and we'll be loosing contact for the time being. I'll check in with you as soon as you land. Good luck. I'm... all the colonists are counting on you."

"Wait a minute-"

The monitor switched off.

"Welles," Carmen shouted as loudly as her weakened lungs would allow. "Welles you insane jackass!" Then began coughing uncontrollably, each hack slamming inky unconsciousness into her sights... she felt light-headed... a pinprick of light lasered at the centre of her vision... a roaring bellowed at her from all sides... A moment, or a lifetime later, she felt her insides droop toward her feet; then kilter over to the left....

Slowly, Weaver's vision expanded from a minuscule dot, to a torso sized porthole overlooking a cloud blanketed moon. She was still in the pod... it'd held. But what strange world had she found herself dumped upon. She open the hatch, which surprisingly obeyed her command immediately, and stepped out onto a planet of vibrantly coloured lushness. There was green grass... so Chlorophyll filled plant-life... fluffy white flowers on long stalks... sorta like dandelions maybe? She'd never actually seen a dandelion... and these looked a little odd, a little unfamiliar... Somewhat more familiar, trees, great and mighty with twisting brownish bark and green leafy protrusions... like mangroves... All in all, Terra 2 was earth like, the dirt was brown, the skies blue...

Carmen looked down as her boot sank into a wet mess. "Welles," she wheezed, her own body feeling about as good as what was left of the one she just stepped on, "your contact's a fair bit on the dead side."

"What in Law's name," he grumbled. "I told him to plant the beacon and move away! Not stand there holding it! Oh well, no sense in letting his ship go to waste."

'In law's name,' Weaver mouthed, what the hell kind of expletive was that? Had these deep space loons started worshipping the law? "All in a day, huh Welles?"

"Really miss, there's no use crying over spilled bovine lactate... Not that we've had a live bovine around here for several decades-"

"Welles," Carmen interrupted before he could get going, "shut up. I'm going to find a weapon, a means to get up there; then I'm going to kick your ass so hard, your neck will hurt."

"There's no need for threats-"

"Welles, you're making my eventual retribution worse... you'll need dental work I'm going to shove my foot so far up your ass."

"Hawthorne's ship is a few hundred meters southeast by south. I'll be quiet now and wait for you to confirm acquisition."

"No-no-no-no-no," she pantomimed to thin air, "I told you to shut up. It's like being quiet, except much more submissive, and a wee bit violent, like having someone physically shove your jaw closed."

Blissful silence ensued, wonderful, soul soothing quiet. She took stock: Everything Hawthorne had on him was a wash, most stuff crushed beyond recognition; the escape pod held nothing useful, and besides, she didn't have any tools to strip the thing down; above her, a terraformer, run down and falling apart; and all around, lots and lots of plant-life... At least she was in no danger of getting scurvy.

A memory exploded in the forefront of her scull. She quickly examined her hibernation suit, poking at the soft bits for the distant familiarity of her covert under-suit. Relaxing, she let out a sigh of relief, he hadn't noticed it, hadn't nicked it, not that it would do her any good at this exact moment, but eventually, its contents would *have* to be needed... Seventy years though... seven decades of a lumpy bumpy mass jabbing her skin every which way but right... She thanked god and community that everything felt numb... Not that she exactly believed in god... Maybe that's what oathing to law meant to these space loons, a cultural utterance meant to convey stress or upset... Unless Welles was the only one to say it, she wouldn't put it past the nut job to have that little oddness sticking out his craw.

Carmen took a deep, cleansing breath, which still hurt, but thankfully a lot less than before. The day was warmish, slightly breezy, she couldn't detect pollen or any other odd smells... the slight tinge of salt. The body of water she could see all the way down the gentle slope, must be a sea, a salt filled sea. Another familiarity to earth. Salt water meant a similar chemical evolution to earth, nitrogen filled air, she assumed, her voice didn't sound odd... oxygen of similar levels, little to no trace gasses... The situation looked hopeful... Of course, a similar evolution also meant a high likelihood of compatible bacteria... festering in wait for a warm body to munch on...

She shook the thought from her head, and nearly fell over from dizziness. Either hibernation sickness, or Doc Crazy's cocktail was still gnawing at her brain. She had to tread carefully, walk slowly, her head held high, locked in place... Just like after a three day weekend bender...

A large ship meandered across the skyline, its destination unknown, its intent linear. A small green lizard like creature scurried away from her lumbering footsteps... she'd have to catch one and examine it. A fallen log, covered with a green moss like growth... more similarities. She jumped over the obstacle, wishing for death the moment her feet hit the other side, her stomach and brain rattling around, protesting their treatment...

How long would this physical misery last? Forever? Would that be the price of surviving nearly a century in hibernation? A constant headache and perpetual sick to her stomach-ness? Did she really want to live out the rest of her life like that? Would the other colonists? And what was with all these basaltic columns? Was there a volcano nearby?

Without breaking stride, Carmen bent over to pluck a long blade of grass. It was herbaceous, stalky with green leafy shoots arranged in a tight upward directionality... very similar to wheat... Were these plants a contamination? Had a farmer's field broken loose its bounds to infect its way across the face of the globe? She tasted it, carefully slicing short pieces of the plant up with her teeth. It was sharp, not really bitter, mildly acidic, very slightly sweet, but mostly fibrous... A typical cereal. Next she tried a red flower like structure, and spat it out immediately. It was acrid, its texture furry, tasted like burnt rubber. She grabbed a large green and white leaf. This one was waxy, very bitter, but not revolting... like chewing on any plant's leaves... Would the lizard like creature be eatable? Poisonous?

Coming upon a small camp distracted Weaver from her examinations... There was a man sitting there, legs missing... blood everywhere... even more so than the crushed Mr Hawthorne. She uselessly felt for a pulse, and was unsurprised that there was none; then examined the amputation. It was beyond rough, the bone jagged, the muscles unevenly torn. There were cuts on his hands, deep gouges in his armour, but no trail of blood... He must've had his legs eaten off as he sat resting against the rock-face, perhaps napping in the daylight... The animal capable of doing something like that, had to have a powerful jaw, sharp carnivora teeth, yet able to tread stealthily, able to sneak up on a man without disturbing him... The creature would also have to hold zero fear of humanity...

She sniffed at the cauldron boiling next to the body. It was meaty, somewhat sweaty, a little earthy... The hopeful meal had likely been the dinner bell that'd ended the man's life. She lifted the lid and spied the eviscerated remains of one of the lizard rats. Stealing the use of a nearby utensil, she stabbed at the cooked carcass, lifted it up out of the water, and took a bite. It was shockingly flavourless. Maybe it'd been boiling for some time and all the flavour had leached out into nothingness... Perhaps the little animals simply tasted like nothing... She spat her testing nibble out just in case; then carefully dumped the contents of the pot out onto the fire. There was little to nothing she could do about the smell, the guy would begin to wreak up the place shortly anyhow.

Unfortunately for herself, and the dead man rotting next to her, the guy hadn't had a weapon on him, and Welles hadn't thought to give her one, so she could only hope she didn't happen upon the creature that killed him... But much like the ship which brought her to this godforsaken colony, her hope held the worst sort of luck. On a rocky shelf, sat two of the likely creatures to have killed the man. Brightly and garishly coloured, canines the size of her forearm, huge useless display frills on their heads, and a dog like muscular body that made you wish you were already dead... They hadn't yet taken notice of her though, and the grass was particularly high... and they seemed completely unaroused by their surroundings... Maybe she could slink her way by without drawing their attention? And maybe she could've awoken when she had been supposed to and not have been conscripted into the fucking service of a lunatic!?

Twisted into knots by anxiety, Carmen laid flat on the ground to drag her way past the monsters, holding her aching breath as much as possible as she did so. The animals, couldn't care less about her presence... Maybe they had a really poor sense of smell, maybe they had really bad hearing... neither hypothesis was she very keen on testing... Walking along, miserable, stumbling from footstep to footstep, grabbing possibly deadly, but completely passive plant-life for examination, was one thing, poking fate in the eye by disturbing a couple of predators, was entirely different... as well as suicidal... But thankfully, they didn't react as she secreted herself away in a cave, ready to urinate in terrified fright...

Crawling along in the darkness, unwilling to stand or make any more noise than absolutely necessary, Weaver suddenly found herself slipping over a ledge... tumbling into thin air... the world slowing as she fell... the periphery of her vision blurring into a purple haze... sound reverberating and tunnelling as if it was coming to her from down a long hallway...

When she finally hit the ground, it hurt just as much as if she'd fell at full speed... Had she actually fallen in slow motion? Gravity on this planet was roughly the same as earth's... and her ribs and arm did hurt as much as they would've if she'd fallen the same distance anywhere else... But then, why had it felt slower? Why had she perceived something which should've taken a second or two, as having taken ten seconds or more? Had it been a hallucination?

"Welles?"

"Use your Emergency Medicinal Inhaler."

Carmen gawked unhelpfully into the darkness. "My what?"

"It's in your pack. A mask large enough to cover your mouth and nose, a particlizer apparatus on the non-business end, and a stylish pressure bulb to indicate operation."

She found the device, placed it on her face, triggered it, and nearly instantly felt better... and a little buzzed. "What the hell just happened."

"Well, in technical terms, you fell down, went boom."

"Time slowed," Weaver glowered.

"Oh, yes, that... that's probably permanent. I wouldn't worry about it though, I'm sure you're fine."

"What caused it... is it perceptual, or physical..."

"Perceptual, I assure you. You're not actually interrupting the natural flow of time... if you were, that would make you a walking black hole. As for what's causing it, I haven't the faintest. Perhaps an undetectable alteration to your basal ganglia, or super reactivity in the dendrites of your hippocampus. Every microsecond counts!"

Groaning, Carmen rolled over, enjoying the rough surface of the rock against her face far more than she sensibly should. Awake for less than an hour, and life was already a shit show beyond all reason. "Are you spying on me."

"Well, I outfitted you with a simple wireless monitor, so I could track your progress."

"In addition to a proctal exam, a cervical spinal injury, and dental work, you'll need your stomach pumped to get whatever you implanted me with, out."

"You really are bad tampered, aren't you? Your profile did indicate as much, but I never imagined someone so intelligent, could be so... surly."

"I have a critical lack of tolerance. Now if you don't mind? Go back to shutting up."

"Of course, anything you require."

"Hey, is someone there," a voice echoed from around a corner.

Wonderful, more people... All she wanted from life at that moment, was a place to curl up and die for a few hours... A little sleep, a bit of peace, maybe a sip or two of a sugary soda, was that too much to ask? Was that beyond the pale after having been roused to burning agony from suspended death, shat out a tube in a questionable escape pod, and introduced to a brave new world by stepping in some dead guy's awful? Could she have five god damned fucking minutes of nothing before life trodded all over her face?

"Hello?"

She guessed not. "Yes, yes, I'm here. I just fell off this rock ledge, give me a minute."

Moment taken to compose herself, Carmen strode into the unknown man's line-of-sight, presenting herself in the strong confident manner she did not truly feel, but needed to project. The guy on the other hand, listed to the side while cradling his ribs. Despite this, he sat up straight, gathered his own nerve, and spoke clearly, if pain riddled.

"You've tried the best... now... try the rest... Spacer's Choice." He cringed slightly. "Oh Law that stings."

Dumbfounded, Weaver stood a full few moments, staring at the man, utterly bewildered by his behaviour. "What the happy wacky fuck?"

"Oh Law," he wheezed, "can't even deliver the company slogan correctly, I don't deserve to be part of the Spacer's Choice family."

Carmen's features twisted in horrified disbelief. "You're injured, I'll patch you up."

"Thanks. I was out on patrol, saw a marauder camp up in the hills, thought I could take 'em, but then my gun misfired, right through my side. I mean, what are the odds, right?"

"So you shot yourself while unholstering your sidearm," she deadpanned.

"It just went off," the man panicked; then collapsed into an exhausted heap. "Please don't tell Lieutenant Mercer."

"Relax kid, I'm not here for you." A useful lie began coalescing in the back of Weaver's mind.

"Who... who are you here for ma'am?"

"The Board. I'm from the Intergovernmental Authority for Corporate Regulation. We haven't liked what we've seen the past few decades, so they sent me. One of your hot shot gunships shot me out of the stars the moment I dropped out of skip space, and I had to eject here." She bared down on the man while continuing to dress his wound. "Sufficed to say, I'm not pleased, and I'm about ten steps away from pulling your company's charter and hauling every last one of you mother fuckers back to earth for legal examination."

Abject fear clawed at the man's face. "Earth's here? You're from earth? You're going to shut the colony down!?"

"Maybe. Depends on how much cooperation I receive. Depends on how royally the companies have fucked up." Carmen paused dramatically for a short moment. "You mentioned marauders."

"Yes ma'am, gibbering, flesh-eating, law-breaking, unemployed lunatics. With guns! Some hullhead grounded their spaceship out in the open! That's a real good way to attract marauder attention!"

"And where exactly is here. All I saw were rings and atmo before dumping out."

"This is Terra 2 ma'am, you're in the Emerald Vale, the green jewel of Terra 2. Edgewater, my post, is just over there to the east. We can the best saltuna in all of Halcyon."

"Relax with the slogans kid, I'm not going to fine you for failing to be a walking billboard." Slowly, Weaver stood from her completed bandaging, putting on an air of deep, contemplative thought. "What's the status of your community."

"Oh, we're great ma'am-"

She cut him off with a growl.

"Mostly good. Some of the workers have deserted, not that we let them! And production's down... And there's the plague." He whispered their final predicament.

"Plague? What kind of plague?"

"I don't know ma'am. I'm just a guard, I don't know nothing about medicine. Mr Sadik might be able to tell you more."

"Sadik's your doctor?"

"Our undertaker ma'am. And barber!"

"Okay..." Stupefaction overtook Carmen's expression once again. "I'll need to commandeer your weapon. I'd also appreciate you keeping my identity and mission in confidence."

"Yes ma'am." He saluted. "But it might be hard keeping things secret while wearing a hibernation suit ma'am."

Weaver glanced down, examining herself. "I'm a little light on luggage. Here." She pulled a foil wrapped item from her collar. "Direct from earth, suspended in transit, delivered straight to you. Genuine earth food."

His eyes lit up like a child's on their birthday. "What's Nature's Best?"

"Right, they weren't one of the companies that came out here. They're a food manufacturer, that's a cereal bar."

The moment his lips closed over the crumbly confection, his face transformed into utter bliss. "Oh! Oh Law that's good. What's that flavour?"

"Raspberry."

"Oh Law, I thought maybe you might be lyin', or at least fibbin' a little... but Law this's wonderful! I haven't ever tasted anything so good!"

Carmen backpedalled slightly. "Glad you're enjoying it." She tapped what little was left of her strength, put a bullet through one of the energy canisters, igniting them into a cacophony of light and sound; then casually walked out of the cave. "Stay here and rest up. Head back to the town when you feel up to it."

"My ears," Welles bellowed over rapidly building static. "What just happened? Can you hear me? What in the ----- wrong ----- piece of junk."

"Maybe I won't make you swallow it now." She paused. "Still going to kick your ass though." She waited a breath or two for a reply. "Welles?"

Movement... Her heart raced... Time slowed... Footsteps... The clunk and bangs of people walking in armour... She dropped to her belly... Listening... At least two men... Not speaking to one another... One walking around... The other fiddling with something... The crackle of a campfire... She felt something begin to happen... Euphoria... Pins and needles over her temples... Rushing air...

The transition in and out of altered time perception, had been instantaneous. Time slowing had hit her like a headlong dive into water, the world shifting into something thicker, heavier; then when it returned back to normal, it was like an airlock blowing out, reality sucking everything behind itself into accelerated normality... It was intense, but strangely, not all that disorienting. She concentrated, tried to cause the phenomenon to occur by her will... but much like Welles and almost everything he touched, nothing happened, time continued on normally. Being able to face the two jackoffs with her cognitive abilities effectively accelerated, would be a whole lot more convenient, but she gave up trying to summon her new found powers when she failed to call upon it a second time... She'd just have to do it the old fashion way...

As quickly as she could, normally, she popped up from behind a short rock wall, aimed at the closest marauder's head, unloaded half her clip; then took aim at the second guy, berserking his way toward her with a machete like blade in his hand. She dropped him with what was left. For a moment, she remained still, carefully fishing a replacement clip from behind her suit's regulator. Dropping the empty clip in the chamber would make noise, so she hesitated a half breath before releasing it, slamming the fresh one in its place immediately. Nothing moved, not even the air, the sounds of the world remained steadfastly quiet.

Carmen let out a breath... the first life she'd taken in some three quarters of a century. It still sucked, still brought her close to tears, but as always, she reminded herself that it had been necessary, that these people had forfeited their lives when they decided to murder for their own gains. It didn't make herself any less of a murderer though, only a justified one.

She picked through their belongings, broke in and rummaged through their containers, and in the end, took everything. The likelihood that her earth credit chip would work here, was almost zero, and earth was certainly not going to direct Halcyon Holdings to give her an expense account any time soon, so selling pillaged crap would be about the only way she could bankroll herself. Like a reverse Robin Hood: Steal from the bandits to give to the... something, she'd decide what she was supposed to be later... after she was able to sleep and die a little.

Three more marauders were waiting for her down the path, and again, her powers refused to obey her demands, but neutralizing the aggressors was easy, they were lightly armoured, and clumsy as all hell. Suicidally ballsy as well, they'd charge with little more than a knife in their grubby little hands. As before, she looted their corpses, stuffing their items into a bag she'd found on one of them. This was actually the first time in her life she'd taken something that didn't belong to her, not that she thought it was stealing, the owners of the property were dead, and what they had was likely stolen to begin with... Was she justifying her own behaviour to herself? Would this become a slippery slope?

Further along the path, she spotted a couple of LEOs. Cops of every stripe looked almost identical, short cropped hair, cheap mock impressive uniforms, and an undeserved condescendingly arrogant attitude...

"Hey! Get over here before you get yourself killed!"

A bitch with no bite, barking out orders to anyone who wandered within earshot of her territory. Carmen almost shouted back that she'd been killing people before her rented ass was even born, but she resisted. Lieutenant Mercer, presumably, was not unattractive, dark skinned, steely brown eyes, good lips...

"Don't know where you came from stranger, but you best keep your head down, there's marauders hereabouts. And worse, landing violators."

Weaver held back a laugh, she was becoming delirious, but the way these morons prioritized things, was outright ridiculous, like a parody film. "That landing violation is mine, as is the ship. I'm special adjunct to the Board Carmen Weaver, and I'm on a priority mission. Unfortunately, after ejecting, my pilot was forced to make an emergency landing. I'm sure he followed Interstellar Flight Protocol E7J-9 when coming down."

"I, ah." The woman scratched at the back of her head. "Right. I'll still need to file an incident report."

"Of course you will. Just make sure you fill the Board form E11 01 in triplicate. My copy I'll pick up later."

"Of course, I'll get right on it."

"You should also know, you have an injured man in a cave back there. A little low on the fluids, but alive and well. Be sure to indicate my rendering of medical service on the E11 09A form, and make sure your insured physician checks him out before releasing the B side of the form. I will *not* be held liable for you people's laziness."

"I resent the implication Ms Weaver-"

Carmen held up her hand. "Spare me. There's two of you standing here like dumb little floor weights, and several criminals buzzing around my ship undelt with. Are you on break? Did you need to requisition bullets? Is there a committee meeting on how best to dispatch ruffians you're waiting on?"

"I..."

"Don't just stand there trying to swallow your tongue like a half dead receptionist, explain yourself."

"We..."

"Forget it, I'll take care of these unemployed wastes myself; then, I'm taking a nap on my ship. If you disturb me, I'll buy out your contract and station you as a guard for a kennel, with only a stick to defend yourself with. Understood?"

"I'm only following-"

"I asked if you understood me officer," Carmen shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am."

"Take notes."

With that, Weaver grabbed the rifle from the other Woman's hands, took aim at the closest bad guy, unloaded, reloaded; then repeated three more times as the fools ran for their position. When the last body fell, she handed the weapon back to the officer.

"I trust I won't be disturbed for the foreseeable future?"

A look of... admiration... of impress, marred the dark woman's eyes. "Right ma'am. My people will be standing by ma'am."

"Good."

Calmly, Carmen strode up to the ship's airlock, cycled through; then promptly collapsed on the deck.

"Please be informed that this vessel contains no valuable plunder."

The stress and pains from the day throbbed at Weaver's legs, gnawed at her spine, crawled down her arms, over her face... tears of strain streaming down her cheeks. "Computer, I'm the package you're here to pick up. Just leave me alone and let me die in peace."

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing after finishing my first play through of the game. I do have an idea of where I'm going, and i haven't given up on my Mass Effect piece, but I'm rewriting a little aspect of it... I want to bring a few characters into the story earlier than I originally intended.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading... and if you haven't already, BUY THIS GAME! Games like this are on the verge of extinction.


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